Now Ready To Start My 1st Fishless Cycle

[waterdrop]

My hunch then is that you are still pretty early, not to the 2nd phase we call the "nitrite spike" phase yet. Your next milestone should be when ammonia starts dropping to zero within 24 hours repeatedly. Somewhere around then is when nitrite begins to go up and up.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[kbod]

added amonia yesterday again back up to 2ppm tested today amonia has gone again 0. nitrite 1. nitrate either 40 or 160 ?
will add amonia again back to 2ppm .

does anyone have the master aps kit as im having probs seeing which is correct reading on nitrates ..?

my colour in test tube is dark red like ribena squash , too dark red for number 40 on card ,not brown enough for number 160 ,and number 80 a light colour completly different ...

does it matter that i cant tell or how can i find out ...?

 

[waterdrop]

It doesn't matter. Nitrate is not important to your fishless cycle. It's much more important for habitual regular maintenance later. There will be points during fishless cycling where we'll perhaps find it interesting but for heaven's sake don't worry about it.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[kbod]

thanks i thought i had to get readings dead on or something ...

10am reads ph =8 ,amonia =0.25, nitrite =1 , nitrate =40

add amonia again at 11am

retesting at 7pm

thanks wilder again for all the help xxx

 

[kbod]

i have updated my results ,seems i may of been stalled for a while all reading were identical for days but back moving again and nitrite is lowering ....
hopefully my ph will go down too ,i wonder if the black stones may of upped it ?

 

[waterdrop]

 

[kbod]

thanks can you tell me how far im am now ? ive finally got rid of the nitrites today .
shall i keep adding amonia ? and testing twice daily ? how much longer for im on day 20 today

 

[waterdrop]

Hi kbod, you have hit a major milestone. It looks like you are past your "nitrite spike" phase a while back and now for the first time you've dropped nitrite(NO2) down to zero within your 23 hour testing period. Congratulations! This is pretty far along for the number of days you've been fishless cycling, so I think your's may be one of the faster fishless cycles. You'll still have to be patient however, as now you just have to keep testing and adding ammonia and see when ammonia can drop to zero within 12 hours from when teh ammonia was put in. At that point (we call it getting "double-zeros") when you first see zero ammonia and zero nitrite(NO2) within 12 hours you can start your "qualifying week." That's just where you keep watching it get double-zeros for "the rest of the week" and then do the big water change and get fish on the weekend. Hopefully by then you'll have figured out which of your choices should be hardy enough to be your first introductions.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[kbod]

wow thanks water drop seems this is doing better than i hoped for , i didnt really no how long to expect the cycle to go on for i guessed

around a month , i will keep checking and adding the amonia daily then . plz keep an eye on my stats to give me a nudge if need be x

like you say now ive got to figure out my fishes, ive got a thread running for ideas,and have been checking local lfs ,and hopefully if lid that trying to

make turns out i may go for hatchets,if it doesnt its gonna be a clip on light unit but proving very costly . means no hatchets though as told they jump.

 

[waterdrop]

somebody told you right - I lost plenty of hatchets to jumping when I was a kid!

 

[kbod]

any ideas for a suitable replacement ?

does my wish list sound ok ?

my fishy wish list resembles something like this...although needs a tidy up.

2 x bloivian rams 1m+1fm
x corys either panda,sterbai,leopard,bronze ,adolf (love em all)
x zebra otos
x rummy nose tetras
x cardinal tetras
x either bristlenose plec or panaque maccus
x marbled hatchets ?

anything ive missed suitable for south american amazon set up to add to the mix

 

[waterdrop]

Nothing bad jumps out at me from your fishwishlist. 'course that's not saying much cause I'm not the best advisor with those by a long shot! I don't know much lore about rams for instance, so don't know about them. But all the others should be pretty good together I would think. I guess I vaguely remember hatchets sometimes getting aggressive so maybe somebody else will comment on that...

Seem to remember that this fishless cycle is taking place in a 200L/50G roughly? So that should give you some good room for meeting minimum shoal sizes and I believe rummys can get bigger than some of the other small tetras and will appreciate the bigger tank...

~~waterdrop~~

 

[kbod]

thanks i will have to try see what could have instead of hatchets x

 

[waterdrop]

I would just try to investigate more about hatchets, rather than just dropping them from your wishlist right away...

Any members out there care to give us an essay on silver hatchetfish, marble hatchetfish and/or other hatchets if they exist, lol? Seriously, would enjoy hearing any snippets of experience.. now's as good a time as any!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[kbod]

water stats stayed same tested everyday no amonia no nitrites..added amonia it was gone way before 12 hours...

did big water change yesterday and went and collected my first tiddlers today ...

well hard going as any of my choices wernt the best to add first so ,as only having cardinals and rummy nose tetras and lfs didnt want to sell me

cardinals as my 1st fish i went with 8 rummeys .which are doing fine all shoaling together and im still daily testing water ...

oh what gorgeous fish in two minds to stick with bigger shoal of them than having cardinals at all...

pics coming soon xxxx thanks all for help xx

oh more good news managed to get the original light unit from prev owner for tank ...